An Egyptian court has sentenced six young men to death as part of a case that has stirred significant controversy. Ibrahim Azab, Khalid Askar, Ahmed Al Waleed, Mahmoud Wahba, Bassem Mohsen, and Abdul Rahman Atteyah were convicted of the murder of a police officer in 2014 but their families and supporters say the charges are false. They claim that the men, students and graduates of science, pharmacology, medicine, and engineering, were taken from the streets three years ago, have not had access to legal council, and that the convictions depend on confessions obtained under torture. They even say the young men were told their mothers and sisters would be tortured if they did not cooperate.

Dr Sandra Bloom is an American mental health activist, psychiatrist, and associate professor of health management and policy at Drexel University. She is the creator of the “Sanctuary Model” of therapeutic care which is now a prevalent approach to mental health in the USA, Australia, and around the world.

“A traumatic experience impacts the entire person – the way we think, the way we learn, the way we remember things, the way we feel about ourselves, the way we feel about other people, and the way we make sense of the world…”

Photo: Former President Rafael Correa celebrates with his successor, Lenín Moreno

Ecuador’s so-called Citizens’ Revolution is set to continue for another four years after the socialist-leaning government’s candidate for president, Lenín Moreno, won Sunday’s election with 51.16% of the vote. Moreno defeated Guillermo Lasso, managing director of Ecuador’s third-largest bank and unsuccessful candidate in the 2013 elections.

The government was always favored to hold onto the presidency and maintains a majority in parliament. However, the shrinking of the economy by some 3% between January 2015 and April 2016 due to the collapse in the price of oil fueled calls for political change.

Ecuador’s presidential elections will proceed to a one-on-one final round on 2 April after Lenín Moreno, leftist successor candidate to President Rafael Correa, fell agonizingly short of victory in the first-round on 19 February. From a field of eight candidates, Moreno won 39.33% of the vote, just below the 40 percent required for outright victory.

Thus spoke the rider of my late night microbus, throwing his head forward over a swine neck. I was sitting at the very end of the vehicle, over the back wheels Cairenes usually try to avoid, the maverick drivers usually taking wild bursts with their imaginary Lamborghini, either out of action-movie enthusiasm or due to the effect of pain-killers, swinging the vehicle and jolting the asses of the poor passengers who had the ill fate to sit there. But I just loathe the idea of collecting and delivering the fare every now and then – the sacred duty of any passenger who rides anywhere but the very back seat.

New US President Trump signed an executive order demanding the US formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Anti-TPPA campaigner Edward Miller tells us why his dreams haven’t quite come true…

On January 23, 2017, US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the TPP.

That kills the agreement, which requires countries making up 85% of the total economic area (in effect the US and Japan) to ratify the agreement before it comes into force. As a trade union organizer working across the Asia-Pacific region, who has been very actively involved in the campaign to stop the TPP (to which I credit a small yet alarming exposed patch on the top of my head), I should be thrilled, right?

While I’m grateful to have a bit of time for my comrades and I to regroup and think about how we meaningfully oppose these deals, I’m concerned that what will follow will be even worse.

On January 29, 2017, I went to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to photograph the #RallyForRefugees, which was held to call for the release of people detained by airport officials due to one of President Donald Trump’s most recent executive orders. Below are a number of photos taken at the protest:

Andrew Clarkson makes marijuana chocolates. And that’s not the most unusual thing about him.

Andrew used to be my roommate in Oakland, California. He was, without a doubt, the most eccentric roommate I’ve ever had. Besides his chocolate business, Rawsome, he has some very interesting ideas about society. I first encountered them shortly after moving into the apartment when Andrew asked me “What do you think about the shape of the world?” I said, well, I think it’s kinda fucked up, not doing so well right now. And Andrew said, “No, I mean, what do you think about the shape of the world?”

Andrew’s question raises an interesting inquiry: in an age of fake news going viral, when even the most established pillars of the media world can’t be trusted, how do we know what we know? How do we separate fact from fiction in cases where we can’t actually observe the truth for ourselves? Why shouldn’t we believe in Pizzagate when it seems very likely that our nation’s establishment media are lying to us about the Russians on behalf of Hillary Clinton?

Hate crimes have spiked during this period with many expecting “the situation to get worse in the future.”

My colleague here at IC, Andy Tenido, experienced the violent and racist atmosphere at a Trump primary event in Albequerque, where he was assaulted by Trump supporters and security while filming undocumented-rights protesters.